The reporter and blogger Doug Ireland regularly sends me stories from across the world about anti-gay violence and repression. The examples are usually all too predictably depressing and repellent. This onefrom Iran is particularly disgusting - two gay teenagers were held in prison for fourteen months, during which they were beaten severely, and subsequently executed in public.

It's tempting to think that this relates to the election of the populist Ahmadinejad, but as Direland's article makes clear, it follows from a record of decades of such executions. It appears that the Times initially carried the story uncritically with the Iranian government's cover story - that the boys had raped a 13-year-old. The story is now much more qualified, although check out the contrast between the new headline and that which appears at the very top of the browser window.